Top 10 Reasons Cecil Cooper Got Fired by the Astros

September 22, 2009 – Asher B. Chancey The Houston Astros have fired manager Cecil Cooper. It isn’t hard to figure out why. In fact, the reasons are so obviously and plentiful that we’ve put together the following Top Ten Reasons Cecil Cooper Got Fired by the Houston Astros 10. Foolishly relying upon Roy Oswalt. Surely Cooper could have had... [Read more]...

New Triple Crown Analysis for Pitchers

September , 2009 – Asher B. Chancey As casual baseball fans know, a pitcher wins the “Triple Crown” when he leads his league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts in the same season. The more-than-casual baseball fan realizes that only one out of those three categories truly represents the talents of a pitcher, as opposed to the combined talents of a... [Read more]...

How DIPS Can Predict A Team’s Turnaround

September 15, 2009 – Asher B. Chancey Prior to last season, I predicted good things for the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays, and the reason for these predictions was simple – improved defense. The Brewers and Rays both had excellent pitchers being undermined by their defenses in 2007, and had both made moves to drastically improve their... [Read more]...

The 2900 Hits Club

September 12, 2009 – Asher B. Chancey An emailer wrote me recently to assert, foolishly, that Craig Biggio had been a better second baseman than Rogers Hornsby. Amongst the paltry evidence cited in support of Biggio was the fact that Biggio had 3,000 hits while Hornsby narrowly missed reaching that milestone. While absurd, this assertion deserves... [Read more]...

The Curse of the American League

September 8, 2009 – Asher B. Chancey Asher B. Chancey also writes for Baseball Evolution and you can read his work there by following this link. At this point, we have to begin to discuss the possibility of an official curse – for the third time in four years one of the American League’s elite homerun hitters has suffered a season ending injury... [Read more]...